Para-Dance Coach Fosters Inclusion in Georgia through Performing Arts

For the past seven years, Ketevan Zazanashvili has worked as an inclusive dance instructor and para-dance coach with the Georgian National Paralympic Committee. In 2014, Ketevan and her wheelchair dance partner won the “Georgia’s Got Talent” competition which substantially boosted public interest in para-dance and inspired her to found her own organizations—the Georgian National Wheelchair Dance Sport Federation and the Tbilisi Inclusive Dance Company. With these organizations being the first of their kind in the region, Ketevan is a trailblazer in the world of inclusive dance and performing arts.

Ketevan also knows that Georgians with disabilities are often considered helpless and assumed to be unable to care for themselves. This stigma leads many persons with disabilities to develop a fear of public spaces, which results in low workforce participation and resistance to physical activity. Ketevan is determined to foster inclusion through para-dance and through her GSMP experience hopes to become equipped with the skills needed to influence policymakers to support adaptive sports programs.